Dean Street and the Junk Yard Dog

A view of another area in Brooklyn, Dean Street, where there are old warehouses, empty lots, littered sidewalks and junk yards: a 9x12 oil on panel.

When I was there a few days ago, I saw a dark gray cat cut across an empty fenced-in lot.  Then as I turned the corner, I  saw the cat go into the junk yard across the street.  The cat immediately ran out of the junkyard as I approached the gate.  The most sorry looking small bull dog came out in pursuit, but stopped immediately upon seeing me.  The dog seemed to have one eye half-closed, a large scar on his face, and a bulls eye ring around one eye.  He (assumption) looked at me suspiciously for a second, and, while I wondered if he was going to attack me, he quickly ran back and disappeared into the junk yard.  As I continued on my way, I wondered why the cat had entered the junk yard to begin with. Certainly both animals were locals aware of each other's existence.

Surreal Red Hook and John Keats

A surreal Red Hook painting, the eighth in the series.  Not to worry; I'll be moving to a different location for the next one.  This one is 8x10 oil on panel.

I'm currently reading the fabulous biography of John Keats by Walter Jackson Bate.  In his late teens, Keats knew he wanted to be a poet, but he did not know what to write about.  So, at first, he wrote poetry about writing poetry.  How modern.

If Only They Kept Coming

The seventh Red Hook, an 8x10 oil on panel.

I've just finished reading Night Studio, a memoir, written by Musa Mayer, the daughter of the painter Philip Guston.  One enviable takeaway for me is the constant and exciting creativity that came upon Philip Guston in the last twelve years of his life.  No matter what you may think of his paintings and drawings from this period, he kept finding and inventing new visual ideas pulled from his own experience.  It's as if he didn't know they were there, but when he started tapping the source, they kept coming and coming.

Smaller Red Hook

A smaller 8x10 Red Hook painting, sixth in the recent Red Hook series.

Red Hook 5

The fifth painting in the Red Hook series, a 9x12 oil on panel.

Fourth Red Hook

Since this is the fourth Red Hook painting in a row, I suppose I should call it part of the Red Hook series, a 9x12 oil on panel.

Red Hook Dead End Sign

A third 9x12 oil on panel of a street corner with a Dead End sign in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

A Red Hook Building

Another 9x12 oil on panel of a building in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Red Hook

A 9x12 oil on panel of a street in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

The Borderland

A 9x12 oil on panel of a large boat at the public pier in Gloucester, MA.

The borderland--that's where, if one knew how,
one would establish residence.  That watershed,
that spine, that looking-glass . . . I mean the edge
between impasto surface, burnt sienna, thick,
             striate, gleaming--swathes and windrows
             of carnal paint--
             or, canvas barely stained,
             where warp and weft peer through,

and fictive truth: a room, a vase, an open door
giving upon the clouds.

A step back, and you have
the likeness, its own world.  Step to the wall again,
and you're so near the paint you could lick it,
you breathe its ghostly turpentine.

Words from the poem "The Life of Art" by Denise Levertov.

Here is where the ladder stands today

This barn is found at the end of Hopper Road.  The hay bales are brought into the barn loft on a mechanical roller through a side opening, but retrieved by hand by climbing the ladder and tossed down to a waiting truck.  The ladder presents a painting problem: how should it be painted if the painting approach is somewhat loose?  It has to be as convincing as the splotches of paint that represent the truck, but not too convincing.  Anyway,  here is where the ladder stands today.  The painting is a 12x16 oil on panel.

Gloucester Boat in the Air

When you see something like this boat in the air, you have to stop and look.  I recently saw this boat at the Gloucester Marine Railways at the end of Rocky Neck Avenue in Gloucester, MA.  There's something magical about a boat in the air, like the boat that Seamus Heaney writes about in poem viii from "The Lightenings."

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air...


The painting is a 12x16 oil on panel.

Late Afternoon Mountains

Here's a depiction of the Greylock range from Sheep Hill in Williamstown, MA that is striking because of the not-quite-horizontals that take you from the foreground path and weeds to the mountains.  This is a late afternoon view with the sun coming from the right about to drop below the trees, none of which is visible except indirectly through the long shadows sloping down the hill.  The painting is a 12x16 oil on panel.

Insanity and The Dome

We've all encountered somewhere the quote that "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."  It might apply to artists as much as to anyone else.

Yesterday I went, again, to the top of Sheep Hill, and painted the mountains, this time looking north towards Vermont, towards a mountain called "The Dome".  Can you see it?  The painting is an 8x10 oil on panel.

Mountain Week Continued

Another painting of the Greylock mountain range from the top of Sheep Hill that gives a sense of the variety available from this spot.  I did this one on Friday on site when the sun was irregular with an overcast sky. The steep, layered hills intersect at fascinating angles enabling dynamic compositions.  This painting is a 9x12 oil on panel.

Mountain Week

This week I've been doing small oil paintings of the mountains at the top of Sheep Hill again in Williamstown, MA.  The site varies constantly especially at this time of the year.  Visible are the Hopper, Mount Greylock, Stony Ledge, and Mount Prospect.  The painting is a 9x12 oil on panel.